Our egoistic development has brought us to a state where we can no longer be satisfied by the little things. But even as our own nature causes us to suffer, we cannot do anything about it. So why do we have to go through failure, suffering, and a life of constant stress? It is in order to reveal that our egoism is evil, and to realize that we have to get rid of our egoism, despite the fact that this seems impossible.

We have no choice: since we cannot reduce the egoism, we must correct it. The phenomenon that is taking place now is completely unprecedented. Today, the will to receive pleasure is growing more than ever and showing us how powerful it is. In fact, it is becoming global, and it cannot be reduced, brought back to the old limits.

People cannot restrict themselves and go back to a simple life, because their egoism is becoming global. One cannot disconnect from the whole world. One can’t say that he doesn’t care about anything and hide away on a piece of land, where he will grow his food and live his life in privacy, leaving others on the other side of the fence to make sense of their world on their own.

The force of globalization and integration has come into effect, and we are all under its influence. The more the general egoistic desire to receive pleasure is revealed in the world, the more we will see how integral it is, and how much it is connecting all of us to each other. And we will then be forced to rise above it!

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A question I received: Why will people’s suffering decrease if they value bestowal more?

My Answer: At first, this will happen because people will want to get closer to each other, even if it is for their own benefit. Then, the closeness to each other will also bring them closer to Nature. And this, in turn, will affect their desires: they will gradually begin to value bestowal in and of itself.

Suddenly, you will sleep better because you bestow to others. You will find that you have medical insurance, social security, a pension, and the opportunity to go on a vacation. You are provided with food and everything you need for you family, your kids, and your elderly parents. You have taken care of others and now others are taking care of you. People will reap the benefits of being connected to others, and this will cause them to value unity and bestowal.

The general process is as follows. At first a person suffers, but then he becomes convinced that the only way out of the situation is to unite with others. When he does, he sees that the unification benefits him, and he then begins to value the actual connection and the quality of bestowal. These are the stages of one’s development.

Therefore, a person should first feel that unification brings him a reward. And then, even if the unification will not be mandatory, he will already feel that there is something pleasant and good about the act of bestowal itself. Thus, a person will feel that unity is positive in and of itself because it gives him additional strength, better relationships, confidence, and a good mood.

Actually, unification fulfills all of one’s desires – even the desires for money, fame, power, knowledge, food, sex, and family. Thus, it turns out that unity enables a person to receive complete satisfaction.

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A question I received: When a person first hears of “Mutual Guarantee” and universal dependency, this kind of talk annoys and repulses him. How do we explain that unification is beneficial?

My Answer: Imagine that this person has been in an accident and is on the verge between life and death. His entire body is broken and he lies lifeless on a stretcher. (This is not so far from the truth, since the shattering of the souls is like an accident.)

If he could feel that the only way for him to come back to life is with the help of his friends, he would no longer hate the idea of a mutual guarantee. He would understand that he doesn’t have a body of his own, but only a point. And his entire body – the arms, legs, brain and everything else – is something he can only get from others. He will only get these body parts if the others will sacrifice theirs for him.

This is a mutual guarantee. It is when in addition to the single point you start out with, everything else that you receive comes exclusively from your connection with others. This is because the desire to receive does not exist in the spiritual world; only the desire to bestow exists there. Therefore, one does not live at the expense of oneself, but at the expense of the sacrifices made by all of humanity. They constitute your body.

You are only a point, whereas humanity is the body of your soul. All these people must provide you with the organs you need. If you will love them, and if they will be connected with one another, then the force of the mutual guarantee will bestow all that is necessary to every one of us.

It’s good that people today are already beginning to understand that they do not want to be in a mutual guarantee with others. However, once they will learn that they cannot survive on their own, people will desire the mutual guarantee. And then they will realize that they do not have the strength to attain it by themselves. They will passionately desire for the law of Mutual Guarantee to govern them, but will only discover that they are unable to attain it or practice it.

That is when they will cry out so loudly that they will receive this quality from above. And from that moment on, they will become the Creator’s slaves rather than the Pharaoh’s slaves. This will happen by virtue of their desire to have another power, a different authority, rule over them. This authority is the force of bestowal, instead of their innate egoism.

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A question I received: Lately, we hear more and more people proposing that a new common currency be created in the world. Will this help the world unite?

My Answer: I can tell you just one things: any action that’s suitable for all is blessed. This is certain, even if the unification is initially motivated by egoistic interests, as was the case with the establishment of the European Union. It’s clear that the motive for this unification was egoistic: these countries were simply afraid of each other. However, now they are united and make joint actions, pass common laws, trade with each other, and so on.

Unification is always good if it is not aimed at harming anyone. It is written, “Unification of sinners is bad for them and for the whole world.” If a unification is done in order for a society to survive, then it is good. Each country in Europe is not worth much separately, but together, they are a great power. Britain, France, Germany, and Italy are the core, the bulk of the power, and all the other countries connect to them.

The world would really change for the better if we created a world government and common means of control, as if the whole world were one country. Kabbalah says that even this kind of egoistic unification amongst people – unification in order to survive – would lead us to the revelation of the Upper Governance and the Upper World.

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Questions I received on observing religious practices:

Question: I practice Torah and the Mitzvot (commandments) in my daily life and my practice often becomes mechanical – not spiritual. You state that Kabbalah has nothing to do with religion, yet it seems inextricably linked to Torah.

Please advise me on how I can re-engage with the Mitzvot in a way that will correct my “desire to receive” to a “desire to give.” Surely that is what they are for. Please shed some light on the connection of the Mitzvot to Kabbalah, and the significance of the Mitzvot for a Jew.

My Answer: Kabbalah is the method of the soul’s correction by means of revealing the Creator. The soul bears no relation to the body.

If you want to follow the tenets of Judaism, it’s your business. Personally, I abide by this framework because it is the tradition of the nation I belong to. However, I have hundreds of thousands of students who are not Jews and who do not follow these commandments. This does not impair their spiritual development in any way. It is written: “They will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them,” and “My house will be called a house of prayer for all the peoples.” This means that everyone will unite by revealing the Creator.

Kabbalah was revealed in Ancient Babylon to everyone, and today it is being revealed to everyone again. Regardless, every person can practice his own external cultural traditions.

Question: How can we observe 613 commandments if we are not Jews? Where can we find the list of these commandments? How do I observe Shabbat and holidays: should I go to a synagogue or a Kabbalah center that observe such events?

My Answer: The 613 commandments are the correction of 613 desires. These desire will only be revealed inside you after you cross Machsom. They are not related to any actions in our world – they are desires.

Religious actions, however, are traditions and do not correct a person or his soul. It’s not necessary to observe them in order to attain the goal of creation. They are there for you in case you want to be connected to the culture of your people.

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Albert Einstein: Do you believe in the Divine as isolated from the world?

Rabindranath Tagore (The Nobel Prize in Literature, 1913): Not isolated. The infinite personality of Man comprehends the Universe. There cannot be anything that cannot be subsumed by the human personality, and this proves that the truth of the Universe is human truth. I have taken a scientific fact to explain this. Matter is composed of protons and electrons, with gaps between them, but matter may seem to be solid without the links in spaces which unify the individual electrons and protons. Similarly, humanity is composed of individuals, yet they have their interconnection of human relationship, which gives living unity to man’s world. The entire universe is linked up with us, as individuals, in a similar manner – it is a human universe.

… Science has proved that the table as a solid object is an appearance and therefore that which the human mind perceives as a table would not exist if that mind were naught. At the same time it must be admitted that the fact that the ultimate physical reality is nothing but a multitude of separate revolving centres of electric force, also belongs to the human mind. In the apprehension of truth there is an eternal conflict between the universal human mind and the same mind confined in the individual. The perpetual process of reconciliation is being carried on in our science, philosophy, and in our ethics. In any case, if there be any truth absolutely unrelated to humanity, then for us it is absolutely non-existing.

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In the News (translated from Shkloazhizni.ru): We are all waiting for something. It’s natural for people to expect things. But is it useful?

Brian Tracy, a renowned consultant in personal development, writes about the law of expectation on the website, wisdomquotes.com: “Whatever we expect with confidence becomes our own self-fulfilling prophecy.” Our expectations tend to materialize! This is why thinking about the things you expect is so important, as it creates our future.

My Comment: This is exactly right. Our thoughts are the strongest force in the world. The problem is, they are so strong that we cannot perceive them, similar to how we cannot perceive other subtle forces, such as radiation.

However, if we  train ourselves to perceive thoughts using the method of Kabbalah, we will feel and see them, as well as their influence!

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In the News (from Daily Express): “Remember, you’re not old” Believing that your memory will fade as you grow older can become a self-fulfilling prophecy, a study has found. The positive flip side of this is that those who do not feel stigmatized, or those in situations where more positive views of aging are activated, exhibit significantly higher levels of memory performance.

My Comment: Everything depends on a person’s desire – one can govern the whole world with his desires (heart) and thoughts (mind). You just have to learn how to do it. This could be done with the science of Kabbalah, because it explains how human desires and thoughts could be used as tools to govern our world and the Upper Worlds!

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A question I received: Your interpretation of the Butterfly Effect is inaccurate. Scientists don’t talk about this effect to prove a system’s cohesion and unification, but to show that a system’s reaction to any interference is unpredictable. Any small interference causes large and unpredictable consequences. And in economics, the Butterfly Effect means that there cannot be any regulator.

My Answer: Everything in Nature is governed by laws. And when we do not know some laws or dependencies in Nature, we say they are unpredictable. Everything is interpreted only relative to the observer – man.

In fact, there is a regulator – the law by which any event depends on other events. And we have to find this regulator. Your approach, however, would lead us to even more problems. If you take a look at the latest scientific research, and at the body of knowledge offered by Kabbalah, instead of chaos you will discover a Higher harmony!

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A question I received: You don’t have to make any effort to love sushi or your child. So why is it that in order to love one’s neighbor, one has to go through such a difficult, intricate and lengthy process?

My Answer: When we are satisfying our egoistic desires, we act instinctively: we love ourselves and everything that is ours, and we dislike everything that is foreign, sensing that it is distant from us and does not belong to us. This feeling of the difference between “mine” and “the rest” was created in us in order for us to realize that we are opposite to the whole world and to the Creator. The revelation of this fact is called the revelation of the “shattered common soul.”

If the Creator was clearly revealed to a person, the person would be deprived of his freedom of choice, of any free desire, thought, and action. He would be completely annulled before the Creator. Therefore, in order for man to attain similarity to the Creator, who is the quality of bestowal, one must start out in a state where the Creator is concealed from the person. However, one then needs another example or model of the quality of bestowal and love, instead of the Creator.

In order to create this opportunity for us to attain similarity to the Creator while He is hidden, the single soul of Adam HaRishon broke into individual souls. As a result of this breaking, each soul now imagines itself to be outside of the others, and feels repelled from them by its egoism. And when a soul corrects its egoism – its separation from other souls, it attains the quality of bestowal and similarity to the Creator. This is the goal of creation.

Therefore, we should not seek to correct any of our actions, but only our attitudes toward others. It is written, “One goes from love for the neighbor to love for the Creator.” This is how we correct our soul, become similar to the Creator, and attain the goal of creation. Therefore, “love your neighbor as yourself” is the general law of the world (the Torah), and the other laws are particular expressions of this law.

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